Goats Used in California To Prevent Brush Fires

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

Published: October 14, 2001

BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 12—
The tasting menu in Jacquelynne Farber's backyard consisted of poison oak, yellow star thistle and wild blackberries. The undiscriminating diners were a herd of about 40 goats, led by a white Alpine named Senisa. They had been brought in to reduce the thicket of undesirable vegetation in what has become a preferred fire-control method here since the devastating Oakland-Berkeley fire of 1991.

Ms. Farber, wearing a caftan, watched raptly as the goats, fresh from an engagement on the scenic 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, trotted down her driveway. ''They're a calming influence,'' she said. ''I'm having a Whole Earth moment.''

Around the Bay Area, the hills are alive with the sound of munching. In the dreaded dry season before the November rains, goats, with their four-chambered stomachs and seemingly limitless appetites for thorny brush, become fixtures in the landscape. They graze beneath the mighty girders of the Bay Bridge, beside the Lawrence-Berkeley laboratories at the University of California, behind the $260-a-night Claremont Hotel and Spa in Berkeley, adding their musky aroma of overripe chevre to the scent of eucalyptus.

To some, like Richard Thompson, 47, an Oakland elementary school teacher, they conjure up images of Heidi or ''Julie Andrews singing yodel-ay-hee-hoo.''

Ruminating about a herd of about 300 of the ruminants, which were eating on a hillside beside a soccer field, Jane Greenfield, 49, a clinical social worker in Oakland, said, ''They are part of our cultural diversity.''

The San Francisco area, the East Bay in particular, has become the hub of goats as fire control tools. Fire is part of the psychic undertow of life here, especially in October, when the hills turn tinder-dry and signs along the winding roads say ''Fire Danger Today: High.''

This is the season of living on tenterhooks, when hot, parched winds blow in from the Central Valley and funnel through canyons down west-facing slopes. In this weather, the littlest things -- a spark from a chain saw or a hot car parked over dry grass -- can trigger a conflagration, like the one 10 years ago this month that killed 25 people and destroyed 3,200 houses and apartments.

The steep terrain and poisonous vegetation along these dense hilltops present challenges for human landscapers, even ones with tractors and power mowers.

''We need all the tools we can get, including goats,'' Carol Rice, a fire consultant in Walnut Creek, said.

The goats' presence predates the 1991 fire. But as the importance of reducing unruly vegetation has become better understood, the animals have become more widely accepted, recruited by an eclectic array of entities including the East Bay Regional Park District, the City of Oakland and the San Francisco International Airport.

Goats nibble and remove the dense undergrowth of flammable grasses and shrubs as well as the lower branches of trees, preventing ''laddering,'' in which flames sweeping through grass climb trees and jump through the canopy of foliage to turn a once-manageable fire into an inferno. A favorite fodder of the goats, the equivalent of fresh sardines at Chez Panisse, is manzanita, a highly volatile plant that can explode in flames because of its low ignition point.

At least four companies -- including Goats R Us, which started with 54 goats in 1995 and now has 3,000 to 4,000 -- have sprung up to deal with the demand.

Goat grazing typically costs about $700 an acre, compared with $1,000 an acre for human landscaping, said Jerry D. Kent, assistant general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District. Goats eat some desirable native species, which is why some environmentalists prefer more selective humans, Mr. Kent said.

But unlike humans, ''goats work 24/7,'' said Terri Oyarzun, owner with her husband of Goats R Us. Mobs are supervised by a goatherd. ''It's not all romantic,'' Ms. Oyarzun said.

Nevertheless, romance seems to prevail. When the first goats arrive in late spring, Dr. Ellen Gunther, a physician, holds a party at her home in the Berkeley Hills, where she serves retsina, fresh bread and goat cheese.

Goats have changed the neighborhood ecology, Dr. Gunther said. They eradicate poison oak and spur the rebirth of native bunch grass, she said.

Photos: In California's fire-wary Bay Area, goats have become popular tools for clearing brush.; The hills around Berkeley, Calif., are alive with the sound of munching goats. Jacquelynne Farber, right, hired four dozen voracious goats from Goats R Us, owned by Terri Oyarzun, left, to clear her backyard. (Photographs by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times)